New year, but the same desperate scamper for a university placement. After securing your spot in school, there’s an even crazier fight for a room in the hall of your choice. Staying in hall is the ultimate convenience, you are the closest you can possibly be to those dreaded morning lectures. In time to come, the late nights and endless fun with friends who literally live next door will become one of the highlights of your university life. But friends and fun aside, there're a couple of infamous hall stories that may totally change your perspective of university halls – let's just say that hall life is an eye-opening experience. We spoke to friends who've stayed in hall and here are some promiscuous stories they shared. Stories that will make outsiders go 'OMG', but are nothing but common occurrence for fellow hall residents. If you're planning to stay in hall, brace yourselves!

1. Splashing Good Time

You would think that the deepest conversations happen in classrooms, or when someone gets drunk. For hall residents, some of their deepest and most meaningful conversations happen in their shared bathrooms. Bathing used to be a private affair, until you live in hall, where the bathroom becomes a new social setting with it's own set of unsaid rules. Couples have also been known to 'triple date' in the men’s bathroom. Imagine this: girlfriend scrubbing her boyfriend’s back while he grumbles about the latest soccer match with his two bros in the cubicles just beside. Of course that’s as much physical intimacy that’s accepted in shared bathrooms. Don't cross the line!

2. Lost and Never Found

Hang your clothes out often enough and someone might mistake your laundry line for a pasar malam store without a tenant – free clothes up for grabs! During your stay at hall, you may notice a few of those tiny pieces of cloth you wear closest to your body go missing. Congratulations, you have attracted the attention of the residential panty thief. Keep calm and call the police, although few have been caught despite even though several reports have been made.

3. Budget Innovation

Instead of using the clothing line where your laundry is vulnerable to the unpredictable weather and an easy target for the residential panty thief, dryers are a better option. But at $1 per use, most broke university students wouldn’t use the dryer until they have accumulated a reasonable pile of laundry. Thankfully, some hall ancestors have discovered a hack that costs nothing and dries your laundry faster. Meet the microwave. Not only is it good for heating up your late night snacks, they dry your clothes efficiently too! More importantly, it's free. But in all seriousness, drying your lingerie where people heat their food probably isn’t hygienic. Can you imagine taking out your freshly-microwaved underwear only to have it smelling like chicken rice?

4. Eye Sore

One of our friends shared a horrific experience where she witnessed her hall mate masturbating through the open window of his room. Another shared how he would always avoid looking out of his room windows because girls in the opposite block would change without drawing their curtains. While everyone makes a conscious effort not to impose on someone else's privacy, let's not make it hard for other people! Let the poor dude look out his window for his 30 seconds eye break without worrying about being called a pervert. Catching a glimpse of someone naked by accident shouldn't be a norm.

DRAW. YOUR. CURTAINS.

Needless to say, no one wants to deal with the awkwardness that ensues witnessing one of your friends naked, or having them see you naked accidentally. So unless you enjoy baring it all to anyone and everyone, close your curtains, draw your blinds, and shut the doors before you start stripping.

5. Door-to-Door Sales

Knock knock. Who's there? Just your door-to-door salesperson selling herself by the hour. According to some ex-hall students, those who live in residences with a higher population of foreign students often get offered sex at their door. As sad as it sounds, this is one of the limited ways foreign students can support themselves financially. Legally, they're not allowed to work and it's not easy finding consistent gigs that will pay cash under the table.

Wise Words

A word of advice from hall residents is to research on the hall’s ‘personality’ before you sign up. It’s weird how a building has a defined character, but check out their respective Facebook pages and you’ll discover the hall’s spunky personality and dominating trait – sporty, quiet, clubber siao, artsy fartsy, and more. You wouldn't want to be trapped in a sporty hall when your head gets more ball action than your hands. Here’s a tip for applicants with no inside connections: For halls that are more popular among freshmen, the committee tends to ignore applicants with a private Instagram account because they’re considered not ‘opened’ enough. While it is arguably unethical and not every hall has this practice, why risk it? Make your accounts public! Also read, What It Means To Have A University Degree In 2016.

The year is 2016, yet the value of an Arts degree in Singapore remains iffy. A quick Google search of the term” Arts degree” garnered the following prompts. Oh dear. In a society that insists on practicality, the Arts and pursuing further education in a humanities subject has become more commonplace. However, the “whimsical” Arts education is not quite yet viewed as favourably as a professional degree or one in the hard sciences. The case in defense of the Arts degree or diploma has been pledged countless times before, but this writer thinks it comes down to two main things:  Doing what you love and making what you do well count. There has always been a significant dip in people studying humanities subjects, as students move from secondary to post-secondary and tertiary levels of education. A few years back, a report on the dramatic drop in students reading Literature at the “O” levels reignited questions about the place and value of the humanities in Singapore. However, perhaps these findings merely call attention to an attitude towards the Arts that hasn't changed much over the decades. The study of the Arts for the most part continues to be seen as subsidiary and for “enrichment”—implying it is not essential.  Studying Geography, History and Literature in schools thus become yet another compulsory rung to overcome in the education system. As a result, students who choose to pursue the humanities at the tertiary level, in polytechnics or universities remain a rare bunch. I fell in love with Literature as a wide-eyed teenager in Secondary school and have never looked back since. The joy of reading and exploring an entirely different world without ever having to leave the comfort of my bedroom was a mind-blowing prospect—and remains so today. Yet the choice to pursue a “passion project” of a Literature degree continues to attract furrowed eyebrows and doubtful gazes from friends and family who don’t understand what a Literature degree could offer. The rejoinder of “You read a lot of books ah?”  is so commonplace, us Arts students don’t even feel bad anymore. So why do we do what we love? It’s because what we love is critical. Robin Williams’ character in the classic film Dead Poets Society famously said: "We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." Not every humanities student likes poetry, but the sentiment behind these lines teaches us something important about the “fluffy” humanities subjects. In essence, it tells us that if the sciences are the body, the humanities are the soul—one without the other makes for an incomplete person.  If we can move away from the view that the humanities are a supplementary facet of our lives, and understand the symbiotic nature of the “more concrete” sciences and the Arts,  perhaps one could begin to understand the tremendous value of studying the Arts. If we understand the essential lessons that Geography can teach us about our relationship with the world in the context of climate change, or how learning History can help us avoid the political errors of the past, then perhaps we will see how there is nothing peripheral about studying the Arts at all, so don’t conflate passion with irrelevance.  Such a change in mindset needs to go beyond official reports from the state that decree how the sciences and the Arts are equally valuable. I believe a real shift can come only from the ground up—how we as a society can achieve this is something we’re still trying to figure out. The second thing I’ve learnt as a fervent believer in the study of the Arts is to make what you love to do count. Perhaps, the quickest and best way to convince someone of the value of your passions is to demonstrate its practical application in the real world. My Arts degree has trained my ability to analyse problems and create solutions, think quickly on my feet, improvise in a time of crisis and craft arguments swiftly. In a world where we are preparing for problems we cannot conceive of in the present, such skills are not generic but are in fact useful and transferable. They are also the exact skills that a humanities student hones every day in the classroom. In a literature seminar on factors that motivate characters in a Jane Austen novel, the Jane Austen part is probably not going to matter in your life beyond school, but practicing the skill of figuring out what makes people tick—that’s always valuable in or out of the workplace. In that sense, the humanities classroom affords its students the platform to emulate the problem-solving skills asked of them in the workplace. Additionally, perhaps the product of tediously penning essays for the duration of your humanities course means that you inevitably become pretty competent at writing. “Oh, you’re an Arts student? So you like writing? But you cannot make money from writing in Singapore.” is something I stopped rolling my eyes at a long time ago. Yes, I am an Arts student and yes; I like writing (although I know several Arts students who are good at writing but don’t necessarily like it.) Either way, writing is far from irrelevant in Singapore. The truth is, everyone needs a good writer. Every company needs a solid writer to think up engaging social media content, someone who can write coherent reports and proposals. Writing is an essential skill and although sometimes glossed over, a highly valuable one in the workforce. In the end, Arts students do what we do because we love what we do. And we love what we do because it can guide us on how to solve so many of the problems that we see in the world today. What we love to do and what we do well is essential, and you maybe everyone could see the value in the Arts too, if only we could turn off the blinders and look ahead.

It’s the day you receive your diploma or your ‘A’ level certificate. University brochures are pouring in through the mail with their impossibly happy graduates, smiling about their university lives or their lives after that. “Come here. We’ll equip you with what you need to enter the real world”, they seem to say. If only this were true. How it is one can smile so glamorously in a study group, I’m not sure. Most of the time, we students are just slogging away when we’re in university. What’s worse, however, is that after years and years of mugging, late nights and examinations, grads are welcomed into adulthood with the best welcome gift: unemployment.

The New Unemployed

Got your degree? Congratulations! You’re officially unemployed. Upon graduation, graduates of 2016 will add to the “unemployed” statistics of the Singapore economy. Having a degree no longer gives you any kind of special edge and companies’ general attitudes towards graduates are more or less the same: “Everyone has a degree. Why should I hire you?” With an excess of graduates and a falling number of job vacancies, that piece of paper no longer represents any kind of job security. Welcome to the 21st century.

Hustle, Hustle, And Then Hustle Some More

When was the last time you heard of someone going on a gap year? You haven’t? Me neither. No one has time for that anymore, not in this economy. Some people even skip their grad trips—and not to save money. Graduates of 2016 will start their job hunt at the beginning of their final semester in school. If you haven’t secured yourself a job somewhere, brace yourself for the sympathetic looks from your peers who have. After 15-ish years of education, many graduates immediate dive into the working world. No one has time to rest or to take a breather - having a degree certainly won’t make your life any easier.

Eat Your Humble Pie

Despite the thousands of dollars we spend getting a university education, in 2016, the value of a degree is, sadly, equivalent to that of an ‘O’ level certificate 10 years ago. Everyone has a degree, so having a degree doesn’t make you very special. In fact, it’s the “bare minimum” if you want to land yourself a decent job. Having a degree is simply not enough; you need to supplement that with work experience. And those of us who didn’t plan as far ahead and who didn’t get around to beefing up our resumes will have to kick ourselves as we struggle to convince employers it's us they should hire. In this day and age, you can’t be too picky with your job. More often than not, it’s your job that picks you.

Coming Up With A New Strategy

While things may seem bleak, not all hope is lost. Instead of fighting their way into conventional paths, many graduates are creating their own paths through innovative startups. With graduates becoming increasingly disillusioned about their futures, many are looking into starting their own businesses, even if it’s got absolutely nothing to do with what they studied in university. With social media and a digital space that is open and available to all, these days, you don’t need a brick and mortar store to run a business. A little Googling and reading up online will tell you virtually everything you need to know about how to make the Internet work for you. And if e-commerce isn’t for you, you can be your own brand by putting your perspectives and personality out there. Millennials are a tech-savvy bunch and in the absence of opportunity, I think we’re adept to create some of our own. What this also means though, is that many degree holders will end up doing things that have little or nothing to do with the courses they studied—not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. Having a degree today really isn’t the same as having a degree in the past. Perhaps it’s time to rethink the possibilities that a degree can promise, and keep your mind open to other options.

"Life is about more than getting good grades." How many of us have told ourselves this, only to fall into a deep pit of depression when our grades came back less than stellar? Having grown up in Singapore's education system, we all know the importance of getting good grades. Having faced streaming exercises from young and then having competed for placement into "good schools", and then into university, how could we not? Studying hard and getting good grades is the point of school... Right? Not really. Grades are important of course. Grades do open certain doors and in certain courses (e.g law, medicine), grades are, in fact, everything. But for the rest of us, grades are not the end all be all and now, as I'm graduating from university and finally exiting the education system for good, I'm beginning to appreciate this fact. University is a total experience, and if you put your time and energy solely into securing a good grade, and let everything else fall by the side, you miss out on so much of it. Now and then, stop hitting the books and go do these things instead.

1. Expand your social network

Don't just stick with the friends you knew prior to university, or with people who are just like you. Interact with people who are different. Not only will they expand your world and your thinking, you never know when these relationships might come in handy! I cannot emphasize further how university is all about “making connections”. I once heard from a career coach that 70% of jobs hiring are not listed on the Internet. Wouldn’t it be nice to one day hear from a friend “Hey, I recommended you to my manager”. Your friendship network can give you a leg up on your job search by taking it beyond the Internet.

2. Learn from the experts

Instead of keeping silent and under the radar in tutorials, and keeping your questions to yourself, talk to your professors! Not only do they have a wealth of knowledge, talking to them also helps sharpen your thinking.

3. Develop practical skills

When you're an undergrad, it's kinda like that Britney song goes: you're not a child, not yet an adult. You're somewhere right smack in between. In this state of in-between, make a conscious effort to pick up practical skills like presentation skills, leadership skills, confrontational skills, any kind of skill that up until now, you might've been lacking. University provides plenty of opportunities for you to practice "adulting" and you'd be wise to use them! The cliche "it's not the end but the journey that counts" works well here. Once you're out of school, you'll realize that learning to give presentations confidently, do thorough research, and practicing the art of thinking critically are far more useful in real life than to answer questions perfectly right.

4. Take those extra-curriculars

In university, you learn that the busier you are, involved in societies, volunteering, organizing events, etc., the better you get at managing your time. I was section leader in a music club, publicist in a sports club, and ambassador of my course. Juggling all these commitments helped me learn to prioritize my time and the thought of losing sleep rushing assignments was enough to keep me from procrastinating. Plus, taking part in other activities also helped enrich my university life. There are so many activities taking place on campus every week from concerts to yoga classes to stargazing sessions... Sign up for these things. Not only do they cost you close to nothing (and sometimes, nothing), they create opportunities for you to expand your interests and meet like-minded people while doing so!

5. Think about your future

Don't get tunnel vision trying to score an A for every module you're taking. If you haven't a clue what you'd like to do once you're out of school, every now and then, take a break from it all and consider what you'd like to do in the future. What are you good at? What are your interests? What are your passions? If you feel lost, embrace that feeling. It's all part of the journey. Just start thinking about who you are, where you want to go, and what options you can consider. It's better to think about these things while you're still in school than try and figure it out after you're out. After all, whether or not you'd like to admit it, what you have in school is time. University isn’t just about getting a 5.0 CAP, it’s about so much more. It’s about meeting new people, picking up new skills, trying new things, having new experiences, learning more about yourself, and about having fun. (Yes, having fun.) There are plenty of practical things to be gained from university and of course, some not as practical but just as important ones as well. If you're a newly minted undergrad, good luck to you and I hope you experience every bit of the university journey!